


Eternity in an Hour

by TwinKats



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: All About V, Auguries of Innocence, Canon Typical Violence, Implied Child Abuse, Implied Torture, Just V really, LIKE SMACK YOU IN THE FACE SPOILERS, Month Long Nap, Poetry abuse, SPOILERS ARE FUCKING EVERYTHING, V and Poetry, V is a verbose and descriptive thinker when he gets going, V-centric introspective bullshit, William Blake warms the Soul, aka: one true love, canon typical language, dealing with your own bullshit in a not-so-smart manner, just FYI
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 11:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18093038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinKats/pseuds/TwinKats
Summary: He came into this world with the breath already stolen from his lungs, the strength taken from his limbs, and his skin as thin and fragile as ash.V knew one thing for certain and one thing only—he didn’t want to die likethis; weak as a newborn kitten in frail humanity. Of course, that meantsurvivingand, well, V wasn’t sure if surviving would be any worse than dying really. Not with—not with what that fool of a devil had planned to go down.Especially not without Dante on board—andfuckdid V not want to deal with Dante right now. Not like this. Never like this—and even worse he didn’t really have a choice. Whathadhe been thinking, originally?Oh, right, he hadn’t.Fates fuck him.





	Eternity in an Hour

He came into this world with the breath already stolen from his lungs, the strength taken from his limbs, and his skin as thin and fragile as ash. His entire world narrowed to a single point of pain that encompassed his whole being even as he could hear himself scream and _scream_ as everything that made him whole tore asunder and in two. He clung to the vestiges of himself in the only way he knew how, the nightmares that taunted and haunted him from a time that seemed to be his entire memory.

Oh, to be the fool again, unaware of his own fallacy and failing; delusional in his mad grab for power over reason. It tore at him, this unerringly _human_ desire to live and breathe and to be _whole_ , but here he lay in the ruins of his past, finally brought low and not due to fault of any one being but his own. Yet in being brought low he never felt so clear headed, so aware of the world around him. Somewhere in his years he lost this; he lost the will to be human, to feel human, to desire anything more but the chance to have control over himself and the world around him.

“Are you going to get up any time soon or are you going to just lay there like a naked sad sack of shit?”

Vergil sighed and with limbs that trembled pushed and rolled himself over so that he didn’t lay with his chest flat to the ground, and instead until he rested on his back. He blinked and stared and tried to register just what he _saw_ in front of himself. The form and shape were familiar; he’d spent how long under the same beak and claws that towered over himself, devoured his mind whole, when he suffered under Mundus?

“Yeah, I think we lost him in this whole ‘split myself apart’ nonsense.”

The words brought to his mind a question that he hadn’t wanted to contemplate. Who was he now, so frail and weak? Not Vergil; not the elder Son of Sparda; not anymore. What then could his name be, what then could his existence be, but that of a nightmarish dream brought to life? With a deep and heavy breath, he pressed his limbs into the ground and pushed himself up.

“Oh, you actually with us there, princess?”

“I am,” Vergil said—and then frowned and surprise. His voice was deeper, different, and sounded just as frail as he felt. The faintest tremble to the words surprised him. His pain was _vocal_ now, and that was new. All of this was new.

“Oh, great! Everything’s good, Shadow, sleeping beauty is awake!”

“Shut up,” Vergil waved a hand and fumbled to his feet. He shivered with a cold that he hadn’t realized he felt until he no longer laid against the cement of a ruined home. Funny how he never realized how much of this place still stood some thirty to forty years passed its initial destruction.

Vergil took a step and found himself rather surefooted given the weakness of his limbs. He took another and searched the ruins for anything that could constitute clothing. He didn’t want to contemplate a shameful fumble from the house to the city itself in all his naked glory— _that_ was some stunt _Dante_ would pull and damn it, Vergil had more class than his twin. At least he liked to think so.

Ink-coated hair fell into his face and Vergil pinched his lips together and shoved it out of the way. His hand came back temporarily coated in black that ebbed and flowed like shadows into his skin. A second later and he watched how the Shadow melted into the floor, into his skin—and then—

“Interesting,” Vergil mumbled and stared at his arms in utter fascination as they filled in black. He could recognize the sigils— _that_ meant freedom of movement in the night, and that one offered mutability of form—and they adorned his skin. He glanced to the Griffon.

“Putting two and two together, eh?” the bird squawked out and Vergil raised a hand and arm for it to land upon. “About fucking time, don’t you think?”

Vergil tilted his head and then rubbed his hair out of his eyes with his free arm as he looked at the bird. “How long have I lain here?”

The Griffon shrugged. “A day, maybe? Look I’m not a timepiece.”

“I could make you one, I think,” Vergil mused.

“Yeah let’s not do that and just say we did,” the Griffon countered. “Gotta say though, this starkers looks is pretty good on you Sparda boys. Maybe Mundus should’ve had you run around naked back in Hell.”

Vergil frowned and jerked his hand where the Griffon settled. He watched as the bird burst into shadows at the frustrated thought of _go away_. He stared for a moment longer as more of his skin filled in black, and then sighed. Now the silence rang about him and left him with only his thoughts to contend with—and the aches and pains that wanted to drag his attention in their various directions.

“Clothing first,” Vergil mumbled. He stumbled out of the room.

* * *

 

Perhaps it should not have surprised him so much to see the manor still stood, if a little run down and beaten up. Furniture rested, well cared for despite the age and lack of use, and Vergil stared at each item he came across for a good second until he felt a not-so-subtle nudge from the nightmare bound to his skin. It’d been years since he’d come to this home, the last time perhaps when he was almost nineteen before the mess in Fortuna—and he still could barely recall even that. Something about a potential resurrection ritual, some sort of girl, and Dante?

What _had_ Dante been doing in Fortuna all those years ago? Vergil knew he went to find out more about Tamen-ni-gru and how to raise it—not to mention their father. If rumors were to be believed the beast of a man had lived and even ruled there for some time, long before their mother came into the picture. The worshippers left a sour taste in his mouth, a bit of disdain—and Vergil couldn’t recall while and it _bothered_ him.

“Focus,” Vergil hissed to himself and moved on. He passed room after room until he came upon the master suite—he’d lost his way, frustratingly enough, and found himself trapped in the halls of his childhood. Now he stared at one of the last places Mother stood before she—

—there was the closet he—

Vergil sucked in a breath and hissed, “ _Focus_ ,” to himself. This half-brained plan of his to split devil and human had left him rattled, and this piss-poor place of memory best left forgotten wanted to take root. None of it mattered, not now, not when—Vergil stumbled into the wall as his legs nearly gave out from under him and he coughed a wheeze of surprise as his breath stole away.

It took him five minutes to recover even a semblance of himself, leaned against the wall and wheezing as he tried to draw in a real breath, to bring strength to his limbs. Vergil felt like he was a hairs breath away from crumbling into ash and it _scared_ him.

“You really should take it slow, V,” the Griffon said as it burst into life around his shoulder. Vergil tilted his head toward the creature.

“What…did you call me?” Vergil questioned.

“Uhhh, Vergil?”

Vergil eyed the bird and then turned away. V—Dante used to call him Verge, and when they were very, very young he’d call him ‘bee’ – he never could quite get the sound of Vergil’s name right when they were small children.

“V, huh?” Vergil mumbled. Maybe that was a better thing to call himself. He was barely even half of what he was—just a letter tacked onto a name long, long forgotten in the dust of Hell. V—not Vergil, because he _wasn’t_. Vergil wasn’t weak, or human, or _dying_.

_Except he had been, hadn’t he? Corrupted, twisted beyond his ken, and dying. He was days from crumbling into ash, wasn’t he?_

V hated the thought.

“Well looks like the smart mouth actually kept things pretty neat here,” the Griffon huffed as he took off from Vergil’s shoulder to explore the room. “Shit’s all pristine. Who woulda thought?”

“Maybe that’s why he never has any money,” V said dryly.

“Oooh, look! A book, V!”

V hummed, and Vergil pushed himself off the wall and fumbled into the room.

“What is this? Poetry? Eugh.”

In it’s talons Griffon held the book in question as he beat his wings an angled his head in a way that no normal bird really could to stare down at the cover. The embossed ‘V’ caught Vergil’s eye first, and they widened in surprise. With trembling fingers V took the book away from the Griffon, who scoffed in response.

“Don’t tell me you like that shit,” the Griffon grumbled, and V felt his lips curl into a smile. He leaned back against the wall, far more relaxed now as he flipped the book open and stroked long fingers down the edge of the page. As if from memory V began to quote, voice soft even as it trembled with pain.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand  
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,  
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Red breast in a Cage  
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.  
A Dove house fill’d with Doves and Pigeons  
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.

A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate  
Predicts the ruin of the State.  
A Horse misus’d upon the Road  
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted Hare  
A fibre from the Brain does tear.  
A skylark wounded in the wing  
A Cherubim does cease to sing.

The Game Cock clip’d and armed for fight  
Does the Rising Sun affright.  
Every Wolfs and Lions howl  
Raises from Hell a Human Soul.

The wild deer, wandering here and there  
Keeps the Human Soul from Care.  
The Lamb misus’d breeds Public Strife  
And yet forgives the Butcher’s knife…”

V trailed off, unaware that his still naked form was now surrounded by the Griffon, the Shadow, and a hulking form off in the corner. He took a moment to take a breath and then continued softer than before, brows furrowed down in intense sort of thought.

“A truth that’s told with bad intent  
Beats all the Lies you can invent.  
It is right it should be so;  
Man was made for Joy and Woe;

And when this we rightly know  
Thro’ the World we safely go.  
Joy and Woe are woven fine  
A Clothing for the soul divine.

Under every grief and pine  
Runs a joy with silken twine.  
The Babe is more than swadling Bands  
Throughout all these Human Lands.

Tools were made and Born were hands  
Every Farmer Understands.  
Every Tear from Every Eye  
Becomes a Babe in Eternity….”

“Holy shit Shadow did you know he could do this?” the Griffon landed next to the Shadow and stared at V who stared at the book and flipped the pages almost reverently. He faded away from speaking for a moment, voice trailed off in hoarseness, before he eventually finished with a whisper,

“Every Night and every Morn  
Some to Misery are Born.

Every Morn and every Night  
Some are Born to sweet delight.  
Some are Born to sweet delight,  
Some are Born to Endless Night.

We are led to Believe a Lie  
When we see not Thro’ the Eye  
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night  
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.

God Appears and God is Light  
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night.  
But does a Human Form Display  
To those who Dwell in Realms of day.”

For a moment Vergil leaned against the wall in silence as his fingers brushed against the last page of the book and the hastily scrawled name within it.

“Auguries of Innocence,” V said softly. “One of the more…popular of William Blake’s poems.” One of his favorites, he could remember. The juxtaposition of the poem, the pitting of sides against one another over innocence—it spoke to him as a teenager. It spoke to him now.

V slipped his fingers from the name— _Vergil Sparda_ —and snapped the book shut. He couldn’t find himself to part with it, to leave it here—and he wondered if _Dante_ even knew the book resided in the ruins of their home, but it mattered not. Half a second later, as if he came out of a trance, Vergil stood upright and began to search the room with more awareness than he’d had when he first touched the book.

Within minutes he found clothing—obviously Mother’s, he noted, but they fit this body’s slim figure. V wondered what age he was—did he look like himself in any form, or did he take far more after Mother like this? Mother to whom he could once attribute the human blood that ran in his veins.

“Lookin’ good, V!” the Griffon cackled as V tugged on the jacket.

“Be quiet,” V replied and with a wave of his hand the Griffon burst into shadows and seeped into his skin. He grabbed a silver cane from where it rested—Sparda’s, V thought, although he could never remember seeing the Devil with a cane before. Still it had a weight to it, and it could bear his own when he felt his limbs weaken.

Distasteful, but the cane would have to stay a permanent part of his attire for now. V needed to get out of the manor, find some funds, and then—well, there was not a chance in Hell that he could handle the swarms of demons that would follow the fools call to arms. He’d need protection to get where he needed to go—to do what he needed to do. Protection meant—Dante.

Dante meant money.

V sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I took one look at V and knew precisely who he was. Capcom you weren't subtle--and I'm surprised a lot of people didn't clue in right away.
> 
> Also apparently _Auguries of Innocence_ is V's favorite poem 'cuz he quotes it in the game like--a _lot_? I didn't know that. I just like the poem. I had no idea he quoted it so much until I started digging and realized he did. most of my attention when I played V was on trying to keep that boy out of combat so he wouldn't die, and lamenting the fact that _fandom is shipping him with Nero_ and my desire to see good V fic about _actual V_.
> 
> So the poem thing yeah that's a thing and I guess capcom and I think alike then? Or I'm more clued in to this character than I'd thought.
> 
> I don't put the whole poem in there because honestly it's a long ass poem, but it really does fit his character I think so it's there and that's that. You might find it quoted liberally.


End file.
